Bob Holland.com

	Flight Sim X ???

First let me say that I don't make this stuff up. I am just reporting what I see and what others see.
If you are a devout "Born Again" FSX deciple then we don't need you to preach to us and you should exit this page now.

I got the "Massive Scenery : American West" from www.sim-savvy.com
Just had to mention it as it's great. Check out some screen shots [ Here ]

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Note: We often refer to frame rates as a benchmark of how well a computer handles the programs but I would like to point out that it is best to lock down the frames to 20-30. This gives the processor more time to update features like scenery, textures, traffic etc. and your sim will run smoother.
Ok, so what did I expect: I expected it to be "more real" as every new version has done in the past.
The aircraft are more detailed and also are some of the airports and other scenery.
Other features have been added like moveing ground and water traffic, wet runways, reflections/shadows on water, etc.
What I didn't expect was that it requires much more computing power than these same features added to FS9.
Multiplayer was replaced with an option to fly with others only on GameSpy.
Instant replay is not something you would want to use.
Combine FSX with Vista and you will need an expensive computer and a memory cleaner for those long sessions.
Update October 2007, New computer for FSX
Ok, I have my new "kick butt" computer. It runs everything like a raped ape. FS9 runs as high as 200 fps.
3ghz duel core, 4 gig 800mhz ram, Nvidia 8800GTX with 768mb, Raid 0, 10,000 rpm drives
Well, almost everything. The FSX update was a big improvement. The duel core support doubled the frame rates.
It has Vista Ultimate, DirectX 10 and anything else you can think of that is currently available for FSX.
After getting the Nvidia updated "beta" drivers and doing some tweeking I was able to sometimes hit 40fps with
all the eye candy turned on. Big cities dropped the frame rate down to about 10.
Now I have great reflective water, traffic on the roads and moveing boats.
That's nice but I miss my aircraft collection and all the great FS9 frame rate friendly scenery add-ons.
So, what am I doing now? I'm loading all my FS9 stuff on the new machine so I can enjoy flying.
After all, isn't that what it's all about, flying?
Don't expect FSX to be great by throwing money at it as it's still in development.
If you have nothing better to do with your money then have fun and let me know how it works for you.
Update December 1, 2009: FINALLY, I have a machine for FSX !!
Systemax X58 Extreme Performance Gamer PC - Intel Core i7 920 2.66ghz, Windows® 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, 12GB DDR3
two 500 gig drives Raid 0 and two DVD-DD drives.
This sucker has 8 cores and two GTX 260 SLI 896mb video cards.
4 DVI video outputs so I can run up to 4 displays and it cost me half what I paid for the last one.
FS9 gets as high a 300 fps but the important thing is that FSX runs smooth between 20 and 60 fps with the sliders up.
The down side is that many of my older aircraft will crash FS9.
Windows 7 does not support 16 bit applications and I believe the problem may be with the older gauge files.
FSX instant replay is still as jerky.

Acceleration Expansion Pack - Lots of goodies here but you can read about them in the ads. What is interesting is that some changes have been made to the current graphics engine. I first noticed that rotating props on some add-on aircraft were no longer transparent, you can see trees and clouds through the prop but not the aircraft or the terrain.

A new check box has been added to select “Preview DirectX 10”. Of course you know I had to try it. All my add-on planes, even the pay-for FSX ones, became white ghost ships but all the default planes worked fine. And yes, my frames did improved some.

If you browse through your FSX folders you may notice that all the default texture files are ".dds". Well after searching the net and with a little help from my friends I learned the developers of DirectX 10 are taking a bold step forward in an attempt to provide more speed. The BMP file format will no longer be supported in favor of the smaller and faster DDS DXT format.

What does this mean? It means that importing planes from earlier versions is not going to be an option. Hopefully in a few years we will look back and say “yes, that was a good move” but right now it's a bummer.

Note: You may have noticed that BMP files are very large and are not supported on the Internet. This image format is another bad idea from MS to slow down our computers. Each pixel is four bytes, Red, Green, Blue and spare. Yes, "spare". There is no compression and 25% of the file has no usefull data.
I have been told that these kind of complaints happen with every new version.
I'm sorry but I have been useing Flight Sim since Bruce Artwick's origional work and each new version has always been a wonderful new experiance and worked just fine with current computers. FS9 worked great for me the day it was released on a two year old average computer with an afordable video card.
The avid FSX supporters tell me that I can't expect to slam the sliders up and expect it to work.
Well, sure, you can lower the settings and miss a lot but what is the advantage of that?
If you don't set "Scenery Complexity" to max then you will be missing buildings at airports.
Another one is "Global Texture Resolution". It can reduce the "paint" on your aircraft to smudges. You may want to just use it for screen captures.
Good News - It appears that FS9 scenery add-ons can be used in FSX. Here is how to install from MegaScenery - DirectX 9 only
FS9 Airplanes - can be added to FSX but guage files older than FS9 will be rejected. - DirectX 9 only
Auto Thumbnailer - Add-on modual to generate thumbnails when you add planes to the FSX Aircraft list FSX_auto_thumbnailer.zip
From the author of FSHost - chocolatesoftware.com
I've released new versions of FSHost and FSHostClient for FSX. FSHost now supports FSX users:
FSHostClient now has lots of new features and improvements for FSX users:
www.chocolatesoftware.com/fshost/?fshostclient.html
Give 'em a try and see what you think. It'll be nice when a lot of the FSHost servers are updated because then we can finally see how many FSX users are really out there. If you have any comments about the beta versions, feel free to post in the Beta forums on the web site. FSHostSpy (for finding FSHost servers) can already show FSX users, but only if the FSHost server is running this latest 3.2 beta version. If you're running FSHost 3.1 or below, it'll show FSX users as FS2004.
BTW, there's been some confusion as to what exactly FSHostClient is, so I'll take a second to clear that up now. In previous versions of FS, you could just start it up and connect to an FSHost server without needing any other programs. But this time Microsoft locked the developers out of the multiplayer system in FSX, and forced us to create our own multiplayer features, in separate applications. So that's what FSHostClient is -- it allows you to connect to an FSHost session, and then it talks to FSX and generates all the planes representing other pilots, and also allows them to see you. If you have FSX, you need FSHostClient to connect to an FSHost session. If you're just hosting with FSHost, it already supports FS2002, FS2004, and FSX, so you don't need anything extra. FSHostClient is only for connecting FSX to FSHost.
Thanks! Russell Gilbert
Landscape - Now you can also have great scenery in FSX with FSGlobal 2008 (2010 is now available)

Private venders are working hard to give us what M$ left out.

From an article in Computer Pilot by Francois A. Dumas, Simflight.com -

Don’t think you can use FSX to the fullest (yet). No matter how big your PC is, how many cores/processors you have, how large a memory upgrade or graphics card; you will NOT be able to throw enough resources at this bit of software to run it with all settings maximized. Period!

For one, FSX was ‘designed’ already a year-and-a-half or more before release and at the time the FS Team decided that multiple- core computers would not be mainstream for a long time yet. Unfortunately, time proved them wrong, and many people now buy dual-core PC’s, with Quad-cores already in the shops. FSX, however, is NOT capable of fully using more than one core (processor), and will typically therefore halve the speed of your brand spanking new high-end PC! Yes, bummer.
(Service Pack 1 provides duel core support)
Bad News - If you install certain Microsoft Windows updates, change or upgrade hardware components and then reinstall the game, the Installation ID will change. This change creates an error message that states that you have exceeded the number of activations. You will need to contact Microsoft and try to explain why you shouldn't have to send them more money.
It looks like M$ have given it to us up the rear end once more
Have a read about it here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/927007
I'm sure we are going to hear more about this when the word gets out a bit more
----- FigJam
The following results is on a 2.6ghz computer before I laid out $3000 in 2007 for a new one to run FSX.
Here is a comparison... ok I didn't get the same spot for both images but click on the one that you think is FSX

Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris France
FS2004 with AeroSoft scenery, Frame rate=20 with active air and ground traffic

FSX, Frame rate=6 and no ramps or ground traffic. Looks like Microsoft can't keep up with third party developers
I finaly did see a couple vehicles. I called for a fuel truck, it did show up and I was given the option of selecting how much fuel to load. Nice feature.

Ok, I juiced up my video card and managed to get an average of 6 fps and as you can see, even the clouds look great now. FSX scenery and graphics are great. I went to several large airports, when I opened the hatches the baggage got unloaded. I called for a fuel truck and they showed up. When I did a pushback the tow tug was on the job. I have yet to see the jetway work. Possibly for a good reason...... With this fresh install of FSX I have no terminal buildings?

Ok, Sitting at Charles de Gaulle airport with fps of 6 and no terminal buildings, I did some more tweaks, mostly to my video card and got it up to 10 fps. I then I started moving the Scenery slider up, when I got to Normal the terminal buildings showed up. When I got to Dense the jetways appeared. Of course my fps went to hell again and you can go have diner while the jetway moves in to place. All this may be cute but it still does not compare to the quality and speed of the same airport by Aerosoft for FS9.

The Northern Lights.
I love watching this awesome natural phenomenon in FS9 but I can't find it in FSX.

Scenery from FlyTampa for FS9, St. Maarten
Huge amount of detailed objects includeing moveing cars and boats. Much more complex than FSX and yet it's frame friendly.

"Microsoft has produced a product that is a major step backwards for Flight Simmer's."
This was my first impression but after throwing a lot of money at it I can now see and enjoy the improvements.
But I still say
"It's amazeing that third party sources can provide much better scenery with much less of a strain on our computers."
Many features have either been removed, restricted or not backward compatible.

There are many add-ons available for FS9 that are far superior to what you get with FSX and you don't need to buy a new super computer to enjoy them.
UPDATE: These add-ons are becoming available for FSX and greatly enhance the Sim experiance. But you still need the super computer to run FSX.
My advice is try the demo, if it sucks then forget FSX. If you like it and you are willing to give up your FS9 world and start over, then go for it but if you don't have the hardware to support FSX than it can be very dissapointing. FSX Demo available here
Responses from others
Bob, you hit it right on the nose...it sucks. nothing like they advertised....I have a Pentium 3.2 gig 1 gig of memory and 6800 nividia 256 video card and the frame rates were terrible. none of my add-ons work. FS navigator don't work but I did read that navigator is going to update to work with X but it wont be ready until late 2007. the way this games looks I may be wasting there time. thank god I didn't get the deluxe X game. I am really disappointed with it.
AMD Athlon Dual Core x64 3800+
2 Gigs of ddr2 Ram
Sata HDD
ATI x1600 Pro (512MB Ram)
-performance, 10 fps average, with max graphics settings in FSX, and it does not look any better than the 50-80 fps I get out of FS9 with full graphics settings.
The best performance I can get out of this machine is 20-24 fps at medium graphics and it looks worse than fs9 at the same graphics settings.
Note: I also checked the processor usage, FSX only uses one core on this dual core machine and it uses only 60% of that processor at maxed out graphics, so the bottleneck lies elsewhere, i have some benchmarking software and will check into this. fsx is memory hungry, I tried it with 1 gig in this machine, and it used all of the available memory, and was actively swapping. With 2 gigs FSX was marginally faster. Even with the maxed out settings, textures still look like crap. In the same pc with 1 gig of ram fs9 with typical background software does not use much more than half a gig, interesting eh. I may buy the ati x1900 xtx for this machine just to see how much it improves the graphics, but i have a feeling it will help only marginally.
I believe quite simply that in order to truely appreciate FSX and see what it is capable of we are simply going to have to wait until Vista and Direct X10 come out. There are some MAJOR changes between DX9 family and the DX10 family. I do some Directx 9 programming in C++ and there is some coverage of the new features and changes coming in Direct X10 and it seems to me that Direct X10 is going to really improve the graphics quality, especially its ability to use the abilities of the newer cards coming out on the market. Its hard but I am not trying to judge FSX to harshly because we are all flying on XP machines with the direct x 9 family, with FSX not even being designed/optimized for XP, but rather it being built for Vista and DX10. We are probably lucky to be able to use it with xp. Microsoft should have waited to release it until Vista is released. Anyway that is my observation and opinion. Ok there you go, now someone pick it apart ! lol

Vladimir from Slovakia wrote.....
Well, I have X1950XTX with 512MB ram and guess what, I got 10FPS at KLAX and other airports and graphic is awful.
Someone wrote "If Microsoft made cars".
The latest model is now available but we don't have any motors or wheels yet. You can buy it now and have the pleasure of putting it in your yard and sitting in it until the rest of the parts are available.